Smokin' summer looms unless El Niño comes to rescue

May 18, 2014

Updated May 19, 2014 11:11 a.m.

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Fire officials around Southern California are concerned about the conditions that have merged to create a September-like fire season in May. The culprits are high temperatures, Santa Ana winds and years of drought. BRUCE CHAMBERS, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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These plumes of smoke were visible from the San Clemente Municipal Golf Course. ANNA REED, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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San Clemente siblings Carissa and Justin Dale, standing on the border of San Onofre State Beach Park, watch a large brushfire burning in the hills of Camp Pendleton. BRUCE CHAMBERS, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Fire officials around Southern California are concerned about the conditions that have merged to create a September-like fire season in May. The culprits are high temperatures, Santa Ana winds and years of drought. BRUCE CHAMBERS, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Smoke warnings

You could taste it, you could smell it, you could see it. The fine particles we inhale can worsen symptoms for asthmatics and anybody with heart disease or chronic lung disease. The region's smog agency put out an advisory Friday warning people with these conditions to avoid vigorous outdoor exercise.

September has come early in 2014.

That’s the month when the fire season usually begins in Southern California, a tinderbox of high temperatures, Santa Ana winds and post-summer aridity.

But, this year, May is September.

This week, triple-digit temperatures, strong Santa Ana winds and drought conspired to create conditions that led to nearly a dozen major fires from San Diego through Los Angeles counties.

And while a shift in air flow should bring a break in coming days, the prospects for the summer are sobering: at least four months of fire conditions that figure to look a lot like what we saw this week.

For those areas that manage to avoid big fires, it could mean more days like Friday in Orange County, when fire smoke was thick as fog in some spots and the air was dirty enough to prompt a warning from the region’s smog agency.

A thin strand of hope, however, runs through the long-range forecast: El Niño conditions might be brewing in the tropical eastern Pacific. Strong El Niños are associated with heavy rainfall on the Southern California coast.

Q. Why is it so hot and dry this early, and should we expect more of the same?

A. Santa Ana wind conditions in May are not unheard of, but the recent wind events were unusually strong, said Tom Rolinski, a Predictive Services meteorologist with U.S. Forest Service based in Riverside.

Add in blistering temperatures and one of the longest, deepest droughts in state history, and the result is a formula for explosive wildfire conditions that we don’t normally see till fall. Vegetation moisture in Orange County is down sharply – not yet to critical levels, but close, said George Ewan, wildland fire defense planner for the Orange County Fire Authority.

“What we should be seeing in September is occurring now,” Ewan said. By Friday, the Los Angeles County Fire Department had “August staffing in place,” said Inspector Keith Mora.

Fire officials throughout Southern California expect wildfire danger to remain high this summer.

Q. What exactly is El Niño, and why does it matter?

A. El Niño is a periodic warming of the waters of the eastern tropical Pacific. Strong El Niños, like the one in 1997-98, are associated with heavy rains in California.

But while Rolinski and other experts say there’s a good chance of an El Niño forming later this year, no one knows how strong it will be.

Still, with 100 percent of the state now listed at some level of drought by the U.S. Drought Monitor, the prospect of El Niño-driven rains in late summer or fall offers a ray of hope for easing the drought and dousing fire risk.

Q. I can smell smoke, and the sky looks hazy. Is this a significant health threat?

A. The South Coast Air Quality Management District, the region’s smog agency, issued a smoke advisory for all of Orange County and parts of Los Angeles and Riverside counties Friday. The agency updates its advisories each morning.

Smoke from the fires in San Diego County have spread throughout the region, said district spokesman Sam Atwood. “We’re really seeing it across all four counties in the Los Angeles basin,” he said.

The smoke advisory is aimed primarily at what the district calls “sensitive” individuals – asthmatics, those with chronic lung diseases such as bronchitis or emphysema, and people with heart disease – who should avoid vigorous exercise outdoors and perhaps even indoors.

“Healthy individuals probably don’t have to worry so much,” Atwood said. “But it still would be prudent to maybe cut back a little bit on exercise outdoors for the next day or so, until some of the smoke clears.”

The Orange County Health Care Agency also issued a warning about heat-related illness Friday.

Anyone experiencing symptoms of heat exhaustion, such as heavy sweating, cramps, headache, nausea or dizziness, or heatstroke, such as high blood pressure, loss of consciousness, confusion or headache, should be moved to shade, cooled with water and given medical attention.

Q.Why does it take so long to snuff out fires in wilderness areas?

A. The foothills and mountains beyond your cul de sac are gnarly. There are steep slopes and cliffs, ridges that rise as high as 10,000 feet, and often impenetrable chaparral and boulder-covered areas. If you can’t drive to where a fire is burning, that’s what you have to go over, on foot, before you can begin knocking down a blaze.

Q.How risky is fighting wildfires?

A. Very. Last year, 19 firefighters – called Hotshots – died while battling wildfires near Yarnell, Ariz. And in October 2007, a dozen firefighters in Santiago Canyon had to use fire-retardant sacks to escape a similar fate.

Q.What are some cool firefighter tools?

A. Ax-like hand tools are often used when firefighters go into combat mode. But according to safety experts, such tactics are effective only when flames are waist-high.

Q.Why not just outrun a fire?

A. You can’t run that fast for that long. Winds of 40 mph, for example, result in fires moving at speeds of 12 mph, with flames reaching 51 feet. To outrun such a fire in wildlands is impossible.

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